Trump vs. Clinton: A debate fact-check cheat sheet

Presidential candidates rarely come to the debates with fresh facts. Instead, they rely on claims that have been scattered in their stump speeches for many months — claims that The Fact Checker has already put to the Pinocchio Test. So here’s a quick guide to old favorites viewers will likely hear during the presidential debates that start on Sept. 26.

The list is longer for Trump because, frankly, he has been exceptionally fact-challenged in this campaign. His average Pinocchio rating is 3.4, which is extraordinary; the highest average rating in the 2012 campaign was Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who earned 3.08. Clinton has an average Pinocchio rating of 2.2, which is slightly higher than President Obama and slightly lower than Mitt Romney in 2012.

Trump often repeats a misreported figure in the media, based on a government report about inadequate records-keeping. No one really knows the figure, but it’s not this high.

“Hillary Clinton started talks to give $400 million, in cash, to Iran.”

Clinton had nothing to do with this transaction, part of a settlement of long-standing claims dating from the 1979 Iran Revolution. (Critics have charged the payment was tied to the release of hostages.)

“NAFTA was signed by Bill Clinton.”

Nope, the North American Free Trade Agreement was negotiated and signed by President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, though Bill Clinton was an avid supporter and got congressional approval.

“NATO is unfair, economically, to the United States. We pay a disproportionate share.”

Trump is mixing apples and oranges here. The United States projects military might across the globe, so defense budgets cannot be easily compared with the European countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“I built a business after my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars.”

This is a fable. Trump benefited from millions of dollars in loans from his father, as well as his father’s connections in New York real state and local government. His father also saved him from almost certain financial ruin in 1990.

Hillary Clinton

Nope, it was not permitted. She also did not comply with the requirement to turn over business-related emails before she left government service.

“Classified material has a header which says ‘top secret,’ ‘secret,’ ‘confidential.’ None of the emails sent or received by me had such a header.”

Clinton often relies on legalistic wording when talking about the email controversy. The reality is that there do not need to be any markings for an email to contain classified information.

“We now have 15 million new jobs that have been created in the last 7 1/2 years.”

This is wrong. Clinton only counts back 6½ years to get this number. The real number for Obama’s presidency is 10.5 million jobs.

“The average CEO makes about 300 times what the average worker makes.”

Clinton sometimes bungles this talking point. This version would be especially wrong. The “300” figure comes from the pay ratio of top corporate chief executives to workers at their companies; it is not a comparison of all CEOs and all workers.

This a hyper-technical factoid. Clinton is talking about the tax paid on every additional dollar of earnings, known as the marginal tax rate. She’s barely right on nurses, wrong on truck drivers. But the effective tax rate — a more important number — is higher for hedge fund managers.

“I worked with Democrats and Republicans to create the Children’s Health Insurance Program.”